We are spirits
So there are a number of posts floating around about Why Evocation is important. Here is Aaron Leitch. Mike C. The commonality among them is an assertion that magic works through the agency of spirits and that any assertion otherwise is modern and incorrect.
I agree that the evocation of spirits is important in magic, and I teach it. Spirits also get invoked through prayer, simple calling, trance, astral projection, possession, and other manners as well. Each provides a different level and flavor of contact, and each of these can be useful for different things. For instance, when pulled over by a policeman, I might call upon a spirit in a whisper to help me influence my way out of a ticket – a full evocation at that point is neither useful nor possible.
Perhaps if we decide to limit our discussion of magic to only the western ceremonial tradition, than we can say that Spirits are the sole operating force in magic. I don’t limit my view of magic that way. Certainly in the west there is also an enormous amount of folk magic and sympathetic magic that is not relying directly upon spirits for their intercession. Perhaps there are prayers, often to simply to God, but the action of binding a figure, separating candles, beating a bag, or whatever it may be is the primary act of magic and it is thought that the practitioner if acting directly. This of course does not negate the use of spirits in magic, or the validity of the so-called “spirit model”. You see, we are spirits too.
Yes, we have bodies, but within those bodies we have spirit and soul. People have power.
That’s why in Tibetan Magic you have training to raise the body temperature through breath, to breathe mantras into other people, even to switch bodies if the Yogas of Naropa are to believed! That is why people that try sex magic usually are successful with it. That is why some people can heal with their hands.
Even more interesting is that very often the spirits that get evoked in an evocation end up telling the exorcist (as Aaron notes in his post) HOW to do something rather than just doing it. Very often they tell you HOW To do the very type of thing with gesture, energy, breath, or materia that gets passed on in these traditions of yoga, Tantra, Witchcraft, and so on.
The Spirits are often reminding us that we are spirits too and can do what they do.
